As we inch towards a new NHL season, prognosticators and fantasy experts are emerging from hibernation to provide their outlook on what to expect once the 2024-25 campaign gets underway. The league’s official website recently kicked off prediction season by rolling out their fantasy preview, offering point totals on key players for all 32 teams (plus win totals for goaltenders).
Now, such an exercise is about as far from an exact science as you can imagine. However, it does serve up some food for thought. Will Auston Matthews cross the 70-goal threshold? Can William Nylander build on his career-best 2023-24 season? Will Mitch Marner and John Tavares be affected by the proliferation of trade rumours and the loss of the captaincy, respectively?
It’ll be many months before we have any definitive answers as to how the NHL.com experts fared in their projections, but that won’t keep us from taking a closer look at their forecasting in terms of whether they seem to have hit the nail on the head or if they may have missed the mark.
Auston Matthews: 110 Points
Matthews’ goal-scoring brilliance rightfully got the bulk of the attention last season, but the new team captain’s 69th and final marker of the season against the Detroit Red Wings also served to set a new career-high in points (107). He is projected to set a new career-best this season, albeit only by three additional points.
Once again, Matthews’ goal hunt will take center stage. While reaching 69 was no small feat, optimism that the 26-year-old could be the first player to hit the 70-goal mark since 1992-93 is based on his relatively modest total with the man advantage. He only scored 18 power-play goals last season, tied for fifth league-wide. Considering he managed to find the back of the net 12 times more than any other NHL player, 18 power-play goals (nine less than Sam Reinhart) seems jarringly low. The other player who notched 18 power-play goals, Chris Kreider of the New York Rangers, lit the lamp 30 fewer times overall.
The other cause for optimism of a significantly higher point total was Matthews’ paltry assist numbers. Perhaps unsurprisingly given his goal-scoring prowess, the Arizona native recorded just 38 assists, tied for fourth on the team with Max Domi and outside of the league’s top 75. While an increase in assists may be incompatible with his march to 70 goals, a return to the 45 or 46 assists of the past two seasons could elevate his point total past the projections.
Verdict: Barring injury, 110 points is probably on the low end of Matthews’ scoring capabilities.
William Nylander: 100 Points
Coming off of a pair of matching 40-goal campaigns, Nylander has remained consistent in the scoring department. The only difference over the past two seasons is the 11 additional assists he registered in 2023-24 (and more than a minute more in average ice time per game). Now, the question is, as his projected point total would suggest, can the 28-year-old reach the century mark?
Nylander’s 58 assists last season came as a direct result of Matthews’ scoring prowess, with 18 passes being put into the back of the net by No. 34. Notably, he also notched nine assists thanks to goals by Tyler Bertuzzi, not to mention seven goals courtesy of passes by the now-former Leaf. The 28-year-old will need to develop that same kind of chemistry with new linemates.
For those reasons, 100 points might wind up being just out of reach for Nylander. After last season’s 98-point campaign, reaching triple digits is the next logical step forward. While good health seems like a safe bet for the Swede (he’s missed just one game over the past three seasons), it seems more likely that he’ll land somewhere in between the 87 and 98 points of the previous two seasons.
Verdict: The 100-point projection might be a tad ambitious.
Mitch Marner: 95 Points
It’s tempting to look ahead to Marner’s 2024-25 season through the context of how distractions stemming from trade speculation and his impending free agency might impact his on-ice performance, but that might be looking at the wrong factors. The more pertinent question for the 27-year-old is whether he can remain healthy.
Provided good health prevails, Marner shouldn’t have any difficulty reaching the 95-point mark. For the past four seasons, he’s averaged a point-per-game rate that, in a full 82-game season, would have topped 100 points. Unfortunately, two of those were pandemic-shortened seasons, while another saw him play 80 games and finish with 99 points. Last season, a high-ankle sprain limited him to 69 games, resulting in just 85 points.
In that sense, the 95-point prediction clearly has less to do with ability than availability. Even if Marner accumulates the usual string of bumps and bruises that cost him a handful of games, his point total should more closely reflect the high-90s figures of 2021-22 and 2022-23 than last season.
Verdict: Shouldn’t be a problem, so long as no more high-ankle sprains arise.
John Tavares: 71 Points
A down year in 2023-24 appears to have raised some doubts over what the Maple Leafs can expect from Tavares in his age-34 season. His 71-point projection would represent a six-point improvement on the 65 points he posted last season, but that also marked his lowest output in a campaign of at least 80 games since his rookie season. Has age-related decline really come on that quickly for the 15-year veteran?
Hockey is, for better or worse, a young man’s game. Beyond the ageless Sidney Crosby and his 94 points, you have to go down to the 22nd-ranked point-getter from last season (the Nashville Predators’ Roman Josi) to find a player born in 1990 or earlier. While Toronto would probably prefer to ease the on-ice responsibilities of their former captain, the departures of Bertuzzi and possibly Nick Robertson leave a pressing need for the existing forwards to assume larger-than-anticipated roles.
This could give Tavares a shot at surpassing 71 points simply by virtue of some decreased depth up front. Provided he hasn’t tailed off too much as he lurches into his mid-30s, he has a good shot at surpassing the projection.
Verdict: Tavares should manage to surpass 71 points with a bounce-back season.
Max Domi: 50 Points
After suiting up for five different teams over the past three seasons, Max Domi should finally have some semblance of stability after signing a four-year, $15 million contract this summer. And given how inconsistently the 29-year-old has been used across some of those stops, it’s probably a welcome change. From being a top-line player with the Chicago Blackhawks to filling a middle-six role with the Dallas Stars to barely seeing the ice with the Carolina Hurricanes, he was all over the place before finding a home in Toronto.
Last season actually served as Domi’s first non-shortened campaign with one team since suiting up for the Montreal Canadiens as a 23-year-old in 2018-19. He played in 80 games in Toronto, managing just nine goals but contributed 38 assists to finish with 47 points. While it’s probably fair to expect the two-time 20-goal scorer to put more pucks in the back of the net this season, his role and, thus, his production will likely mostly mirror his Toronto debut.
For Domi to improve on his 2023-24 production and surpass his projection, a hot start will be critical. Perhaps taking some time to adjust to his new team, he started slowly last season, producing zero goals and just four assists over his first 11 games as a Maple Leaf. He didn’t score his first goal of the season until December.
Verdict: 50 points seems to be a fair projection for Domi, albeit probably with a double-digit goal total.
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Matthew Knies: 43 Points
If anyone is due for a statistical jump in production this season among the Maple Leafs forward corps, it’s probably Matthew Knies. Barring any changes between now and opening night, the 21-year-old is slated to slot in as the club’s No. 1 left-wing option. Not only does that mean playing up with Matthews and Marner, but it also likely portends to a significant increase from the 13:41 in average ice time he saw last season.
These factors were presumably considered when it came to Knies’ 43-point projection. But even still, an eight-point increase off of last season’s 15 goals and 20 assists seems rather conservative. Unless Toronto manages to ink Max Pacioretty (and maybe even still if they do), Knies is clearly the top left-wing option on the roster. With increased ice time and the opportunities that will be yielded by playing alongside two elite linemates, the University of Minnesota product could be in for a massive sophomore season in the NHL.
Verdict: Knies has the chance to cruise past his 43-point projection.
Morgan Rielly: 67 Points
It’s been three years since defenseman Morgan Rielly last played a full season and a long six years since his career-best 72-point campaign, but there’s reason to believe 2024-25 could be different for the new dad. For one thing, he is slated to be joined on the right side by new teammate Chris Tanev. And while there’s hope for some quick and easy chemistry, there’s also some fresh optimism that Rielly can stay on the ice this season.
Rielly, the longest-tenured Maple Leaf, has missed 27 games over the past two seasons. A year ago, a five-game suspension for cross-checking Ridly Grieg and a late-season upper-body injury combined to cost the 30-year-old 10 games. If you were to stretch his 58 points over a full 82-game slate, you’d get 66.4, just shy of the projected 67 points. It remains to be seen if the presence of Tanev helps Rielly freelance a little more and join the offensive rush, but a healthy season should definitely help him meet his projections.
Verdict: Provided he doesn’t cross-check anyone, Rielly should wind up right in the ballpark of his projection.
Oliver Ekman-Larsson: 38 Points
Of the top 75 blueliners listed in the NHL’s point total projections, only Rielly and Oliver Ekman-Larsson represented the Maple Leafs. While Jake McCabe and/or Timothy Liljegren could ultimately have something to say about that, the 38-point outlook for Ekman-Larsson seems to be within reach.
On a deep Florida Panthers’ blue line last season, the defenseman popularly known as ‘OEL’ recorded 32 points in what was largely a bottom-pairing role. His 18:24 in average ice time ranked as the lowest he’s seen since his 2010-11 rookie season. Although questions remain about whether the 33-year-old can still be trusted in a top-four role after being exposed at times in the playoffs, he will likely see his role expand in Toronto.
It’s probably too much to ask Ekman-Larsson to return to his peak production years when he averaged 44.5 points across six years with the Arizona Coyotes between 2013 and 2019. However, 38 points represent the mid-point between his career peak and his numbers from last season, which seems like a reasonable landing spot.
Verdict: As hard as it is to project a new addition, 38 points seem fair for Ekman-Larsson.
Joseph Woll: 33 Wins
Perhaps the most eye-opening aspect of the projections—at least from a Maple Leafs’ perspective—is how high the NHL guys are on Joseph Woll as the club’s undisputed No. 1 goalie. The logic of 33 wins is sound: Toronto has won between 46 and 54 games in every full season dating back to 2017-18, and Woll figures to assume the lion’s share of those wins. But are they taking the player into account as well as the team?
Woll’s limited track record does not exactly portend well to 33 wins. To this point, he’s only seen action in 36 career games at the NHL level. His career-best 25 games last season likely would have wound up being a higher total if not for a series of injuries that somewhat derailed his breakout, an ongoing theme through the 25-year-old’s journey through pro hockey thus far (from ‘Brad Treliving: Maple Leafs have to ‘dig into’ Joseph Woll’s history of getting injured,’ Toronto Sun, May 10, 2024). New backup Anthony Stolarz has made a career out of playing second-fiddle, but could still be called upon to seize a bigger role if Woll falters or gets hurt.
Even if Woll does stay healthy, 33 wins are no immediate lock. Such a win total would have been good for the ninth-highest across the NHL last season. In fact, you’d have to go all the way down to No. 14 on the wins list to find a goalie who started fewer than 50 games (Charlie Lindgren; 25 wins in 48 starts).
Verdict: We wish Woll all the best, but 33 wins seem rather high.
Of course, I recognize that my take on the NHL.com projections is just as potentially faulty as the original picks themselves. Who knows, maybe Woll does breakthrough as a top-10 netminder. The fun of the dawn of a new season is that no one really knows what’s going to happen.
